# Sean Penn's visit to Iraq

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2002-12-20T06:37:30Z



NYPOST.COMPenn's trip into the heart of enemy territory disgusted many Americans and won him the nickname "Baghdad Sean," a takeoff on the "Hanoi Jane" moniker Jane Fonda earned by visiting North Vietnam in 1971. Good for Sean. It tooks guts for him to go to Iraq and I commend him for it. Shame on Iraq for screwing it up.

I first met Sean in 1991 or so when I was associate to the executive producer for the movie, Indian Runner which Sean Penn directed. The movie did OK at Canne, but ended up not doing well in the box office. The movie was a lot of fun starring people like   David Morse,  Viggo Mortensen,  Charles Bronson,  Dennis Hopper,  Patricia Arquette, and Valeria Golino. It was my first and last job on a movie set, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Later, when we were promoting the movie in Japan, I also took care of Sean in Tokyo and acted as his interpreter. I found Sean to be a really funny and very intelligent guy who I now greatly respect. He also introduced me to Heather, a good friend of Winona Ryder's, who was living in Tokyo at the time and who I still keep in touch with.

Anyway... I think this took a lot of guts and makes my previous entry about my fear of criticism seem quite trivial.





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Japanese Policy